Vatican newspaper in English goes online

From the Catholic News Agency

For the first time ever the Vatican newspaper will now provide a daily news service in English.

Up until now L’Osservatore Romano has only printed a weekly English edition. Its daily edition meanwhile has always been in Italian. But now the Vatican’s semi-official paper has launched a new website aimed at providing constantly updated coverage in both English and Italian.

The newspaper says it eventually wants to expand the languages available online to include German, Spanish, French, Polish and Portuguese. However, these offerings would only be updated weekly.

L’Osservatore Romano – “The Roman Observer” in English - is currently marking its 150th year of existence. It was launched in 1861 to defend the Papal States against the Italian political radical Giuseppe Garibaldi in his bid to subsume the Pope’s territories into a newly unified Italy. The paper’s ownership was independent of the Church up until 1885 when the Vatican acquired it during the reign of Pope Leo XIII.

The new website is currently free but will require a subscription by the end of August.